Greece: EgyptAir flight abruptly swerves, vanishes over Mediterranean

Greek officials said Thursday that an EgyptAir flight that disappeared over the Mediterranean en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard apparently made two sharp turns then suddenly lost altitude before vanishing from radar.

There was no immediate word on where the plane went down or what might have caused it to drop out of the sky from an altitude of 37,000 feet.

Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said the plane was last seen on radar at 15,000 feet, Reuters reports. At the time, EgyptAir says, the Airbus A320 was about 174 miles off the Egyptian coast and had just entered Egyptian airspace.

Egyptian and Greek authorities said the plane likely went down near the Greek island of Crete. Greece’s defense ministry mobilized a search and rescue operation. No wreckage has been located.

French President Francois Hollande confirmed the disappearance of flight MS804 but said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash.

“When we have the truth we need to draw all the conclusions,” Hollande said in Paris. “At this stage, we must give priority to solidarity toward the families” of the victims.

EgyptAir said on Twitter that the passengers included 30 Egyptians and 15 French and two Iraqis. Also onboard were one person each from Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria, Canada, Great Britain, Belgium, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. No Americans were reported to be aboard the plane.

Sherif Ismail, Egypt’s prime minister, told reporters at Cairo airport that it was also too early to draw any conclusions about what caused the plane’s disappearance. “We cannot rule anything out,” he said. He also said there was no “distress call.”

Kostas Lintzerakos, the director of Greece’s civil aviation authority, told Greek TV station Star the pilot did not report any problems before exiting Greek airspace.

Sharif Fathy, Egypt’s minister of civil aviation, said a terror attack or technical problem cannot be ruled out as the cause of the crash.

Aircraft manufacturer Airbus said in a statement that it “regrets to confirm the loss of an Egyptair A320, flight ‪#‎MS804‬.” Airbus said EgyptAir took delivery of the plane in November 2003 and that it had accumulated approximately 48,000 flight hours.

Relatives of passengers on board the missing flight arrived at Cairo airport and at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, where crisis centers were set up.

The Associated Press reported that a man and a woman, identified by airport staff as relatives of the flight’s passengers, sat at an information desk near the EgyptAir counter Thursday at Charles De Gaulle’s Terminal 1. The woman was sobbing, holding her face in a handkerchief, the AP said.

Hollande spoke with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on the phone and agreed to “closely cooperate to establish as soon as possible the circumstances” of the flight’s disappearance. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault offered to send military planes and boats to assist in the search.

EgyptAir operates from a hub at Cairo International Airport and is based in Heliopolis, Egypt. It offers passenger and freight services to more than 75 destinations.

Back in March, EgyptAir Flight 181 en route to Cyprus was hijacked by a passenger claiming to be wearing a suicide belt. The hijacker surrendered at Larnaca International Airport in Cyprus and all passengers were released safely. No one was hurt in the incident, which Cypriot authorities said was not terrorism related.

A Russian passenger plane crashed in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula last October, killing all 224 people on board. Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weighed in on the crash, calling it “yet another terrorist attack.” In a Twitter post Thursday, Trump pointed to the incident, asking “when will we get tough, smart and vigilant? Great hate and sickness!”